“Do you remember last year in around July or August, I told you to take a picture of your loved ones because you wouldn’t be seeing them until now?” Montleon said, getting a laugh from the white-uniformed graduates and their families.

“You have worked so hard to get here,” Montleon said as flash photography lit up the Diman auditorium.

People in the crowd filmed nearly continuously with cellphones and applause broke out at almost every one of the speakers’ sentences.

“I always enjoy attending graduations,” said Fall River Mayor Will Flanagan. “There’s a sense of celebration.

“You’ve all made the grade to sit where you are today,” Flanagan said. “You are dedicating your lives to helping others.”

Principal Brian Bentley looked out over the graduates and said he remembered them in all moods and conditions, from overworked and tentative to triumphant. He said he’d seen them make their way through their studies day by day and said he particularly remembered greeting them as he walked the halls in the morning.

“Tonight is not the end of the journey,” Bentley said. “This is just a different pathway.

“You can say to yourself, ‘I’m good. I did it. I can make a difference. I will make a difference.’”

Diane Costa, assistant director of nursing at the Rhode Island Veterans Home in Bristol, R.I., said she couldn’t remember who spoke at her own graduation.

“You’ll remember all the hard work that got you to this point,” Costa told the graduates.